A 17-year-old whose plan to rob a Slidell convenience store was thwarted in November by a screaming employee was convicted Wednesday of attempted first-degree robbery, a crime that could put him in prison for up to 20 years. Ellis P. Dardar, from the town of Livonia in Pointe Coupee Parish; his brother-in-law, 20-year-old Marc A. Kuchler; and Kuchler's 16-year-old wife were all charged with attempted first-degree robbery after their alleged scheme to rob the store -- with the scantily clad teenage girl as a distraction and "a realistic-looking BB gun" as their weapon -- unraveled.

Ellis P. Dardar

A St. Tammany Parish jury on Wednesday found Dardar guilty as charged of attempted first-degree robbery. Dardar was prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney Julie Knight.

Kuchler is still awaiting trial, while his wife is being housed in a juvenile jail, according to Rick Wood, spokesman for the District Attorney's Office. The teenager was tried as a juvenile and court records are not public.

The trio reportedly plotted the robbery while eating at a buffet restaurant and, once they finished their meal, went to a sporting goods store and bought the BB gun, according to the Slidell Police Department. They then went to Kuchler's house, where his wife dressed in a low-cut shirt and shorts intended to distract the cashier of the Quick Check store on Fremaux Avenue. Dardar fashioned a mask from a bandanna.

Kuchler dropped his wife off at the store, instructing her to buy something and scratch her head when the clerk opened the register. Dardar, waiting for her signal, was to rush in with the BB gun and demand cash.

But as the teenager completed her purchase, another employee walked outside and saw Dardar heading toward the store with a bandanna on his face. The employee shouted, Dardar ran off and the employee called police, then tracked Dardar until he lost him in some nearby woods. When Slidell police officers found him leaving the woods, he reportedly told them that two people sitting in a green Cadillac outside the convenience store were his co-conspirators.

A police dog later found the BB gun in the woods.

Judge Reginald Badeaux will sentence Dardar on April 2 to up to 20 years in prison without the benefit of parole or suspended sentence.